Sax-Zim Bog Birding Festival

Friday Feb 13, 2015.  Today is actually a Pre-fest day but we booked it in order to do all of the tours. Today was the bog tour.  We got up at about 5:00am, about an hour + to get to the meeting place, the school bus took off at 7:00am with very excited birders!  the bus windows kept getting iced up, but they gave us all ice scrapers!  no problem.  the bus was pretty cold as it was pretty cold outside!

Our first stop was to find the Great Gray Owl (#2)

its snowing but everyone is very excited to find this owl!

Bird feeders have Evening Grosbeaks:  so pretty

different feeders have a pair of Pine Grosbeaks (#3)

after the fest we headed back to Bakers Island to find the Common Eider (#4)!

A good day birding for us!

Dinner at Famous Daves... it was really good, catfish and memphis ribs...  ate way too much!

Saturday Feb 14 (Valentines day):  Very early start today. set the alarm clock for 3:50am!  and it was cold out too!

when we left the hotel it was 1 deg above zero

when we arrived at the meeting spot it was -6 or -8 depends on who you talk to!

the bus left at 6:00am.  this time we had a coach bus, with a bathroom and heat!    It was a bit more crowded as we had two to a seat instead of one to a seat like yesterday.

by the time we got out to go for our first walk it was -17 with a -33 wind chill!  what are we thinking?

we were looking for the Black-backed woodpecker...  needless to say he was a no show!  I am really covered up, not too bad outside!

we ended up going to Ely, one of my favorite MN towns.

we only stopped to look at the bird feeders..

snow sculptures in town... flying pigs?

we drove all over looking for the Bohemian Waxwings but no luck...  all the birds said it was too blasted cold to put on a show for us!

After driving (riding) all day we left the group and headed home.. but before we got there we found this Northern Hawk Owl (#5)

we did not want to get involved with the Valentines crowd so we went to a little pizza place, it was actually very good!

Sunday Feb 15:  We don't have to leave the hotel until 6:55!  we get to sleep in and eat breakfast too!
we are back in the school bus today for our tour of Duluth and Superior Wis.

found another Snowy Owl

Looking for the Gyrfalcon..  no luck!

found another Northern Hawk Owl...

we did go to the dump and found the Greater Black Backed Gull (6) and the Glaucous Gull (7).  no photos of them!

All in all a very successful festival. 7 new birds to add to our life list and 17 for our year list!  Would have liked to have seen the Bohemian Waxwing, Red Crossbill and White winged Crossbill, Gyrfalcon, Black backed and the Three Toed Woodpecker, Boreal Owl, Spruce and Sharp Tailed Grouse.

We might have to take another trip up here for a few days in April/May!  We met some wonderful people, hope we meet up again some day!